Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday August 23, 2012 @08:11PM
from the staring-back-at-me dept.

First time accepted submitter Thorodin writes in with a story at the BBC about scientists at Yale who have built a robot that they hope will be able to recognize itself in a mirror. "A robot named Nico could soon pass a landmark test - recognizing itself in a mirror.
Such self-awareness would represent a step towards the ultimate goal of thinking robots.
Nico, developed by computer scientists at Yale University, will take the test in the coming months.
The ultimate aim is for Nico to use a mirror to interpret objects around it, in the same way as humans use a rear-view mirror to look for cars.
'It is a spatial reasoning task for the robot to understand that its arm is on it not on the other side of the mirror,' Justin Hart, the PhD student leading the research told BBC News. So far the robot has been programmed to recognize a reflection of its arm, but ultimately Mr Hart wants it to pass the "full mirror test".
The so-called mirror test was originally developed in 1970 and has become the classic test of self-awareness."